Not of This Earth

Not of This Earth is an independently made 1957 American black-and-white science fiction film produced and directed by Roger Corman (for his Los Altos Productions), that stars Paul Birch, Beverly Garland, Morgan Jones, William Roerick, and Anna Lee Carroll. The film was written by Charles B. Griffith and Mark Hanna and was distributed by Allied Artists Pictures Corporation as a double feature with Attack of the Crab Monsters. Its theatrical release had a running time of 67 minutes, that was expanded to 70 minutes in 1962 for TV syndication. The storyline concerns the attempts by an extraterrestrial humanoid to surreptitiously secure the blood of humans and to test it on himself as a treatment for a fatal blood disorder which is ravaging the population of his home planet, Davanna. Plot A man who is "not of this Earth" has adopted the name "Mr. Johnson" for moving among the populace of Los Angeles. The alien has a sensitivity to high-decibel sounds and is conspicuous only for his stilted and formal syntax and his sunglasses, which he wears even in the dark. The sunglasses hide his blank, white-eyed stare which kills his victims by burning through their eyes and into their brains. He removes the blood of his first victim (a teenage girl walking home at night from a date) using a system of tubes and canisters that he keeps in an aluminum attaché case. Johnson is from the planet Davanna, where the inhabitants have developed an incurable blood disease as a side effect from a nuclear war, and he has been sent to Earth to examine the blood of humans for its possible usefulness in curing Davanna's dying race (their blood is slowly turning to dust in their veins). Johnson is answerable to an authority on Davanna with whom he can communicate through a device hidden behind a sliding panel in the living room of his Griffith Park mansion. His bodyguard, Jeremy, who also acts as his chauffeur and houseboy, provides him support and protection, but is unaware of his being a murderous alien.